1. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to an apparatus and method for routing communication signals from a source device to a destination device.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional networks require routers and switches to process full destination addresses in order to route communication signals to a destination device. Buffers within the routers and switches that queue the communication signals must account for the full destination addresses of communication traffic that circulates through the routers and switches. The routers and switches must process all incoming traffic regardless of its destination and must process each element of the entire address of each incoming communication signal. Thus, the routers and switches must perform global routing on every communication signal that is received. Furthermore, the routers and switches must know the entire topology of the network in order to route each of the incoming communication signals. Thus, high volume communication signals destined to one address may become a bottleneck to low volume communication signals destined to another address. Therefore, there is a need for new technology to relieve such bottleneck conditions and to generally improve communication network efficiency.
The present invention is directed to a plurality of processing nodes, organized into a network, that route communication signals from a source device to a destination device. Each of the processing nodes include a processing module and a medium interface. The processing module of a processing node performs only local processing on communication signals to thereby increase the speed and efficiency of processing the signals. Local processing involves processing portions of an address as a single entity. Global routing of communication signals is accomplished by the medium interface of the processing node.
The network is divided into sub-networks of processing nodes. Addresses of devices and processing nodes are also organized based on the sub-network structure and are divided into three portions. For each processing node, a first portion relates to addresses of other processing nodes that are in sub-networks that are xe2x80x9cabovexe2x80x9d the sub-network of the processing node; a second portion relates to addresses of other processing nodes that are within the xe2x80x9csamexe2x80x9d sub-network as the processing node; and a third portion relates to addresses of processing nodes or devices that are in sub-networks that are xe2x80x9cbelowxe2x80x9d the sub-network of the processing node or are xe2x80x9cchildxe2x80x9d devices of the processing node, respectively. Each of the three portions of the address is treated as one entity. The processing module of each processing node of a sub-network processes address information in terms of these three portions. Thus, in this sense, the process module processes only addresses that are local to the processing node. Accordingly, each node need not perform global routing processing on the received communication signals.
Additionally, each processing node may be associated with carrier signal frequencies/wavelengths that identify the processing node as the intended recipient of the carrier signal. When a received carrier signal has a frequency/wavelength corresponding to the processing node, the processing module of the processing node receives the carrier signal and processes address information modulated on the carrier signal to determine how to route the communication signal through the network. Carrier signals of other frequencies/wavelengths are passed on to other processing nodes by the medium interface without processing by the processing module of the processing node.